


Trade Secrets.

by shimere277



Category: Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: M/M, Preincarnation Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:50:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimere277/pseuds/shimere277
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the stone city of Petra, a fateful meeting between the Knights Templar and the Assassins.  Yeah, I know that the Knights Templar and the Assassins weren't anything like this in reality.  This is what they should have been like.  Shut it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trade Secrets.

  
  
  
**Current mood:** |   
creepy  
---|---  
  
_ **Trade Secrets** _

 

            Francys, not yet adjusted to the heat of Outrejordan, found it impossible to sleep.  And then he smelled death, and dodged into the shadows of the empty city with a drawn sword.  
            The assassin stood over his victim, obviously not expecting the arrival of the European.  But he was fast, wheeling with his curved knife, and Francys wondered for a second if he would have to cut down his unexpected guest.  He hoped not; there was something about the man, dark, beautiful and whip-thin, that made Francys shiver with anticipation.  But then the man shrugged, smiling and gestured slightly towards the felled crusader with his knife.  "Do you mind?" he said, to Francys' surprise, in heavily accented English.  
            Francys shrugged.  "He was a Hospitaller.  Easier for me to complete my mission if he's not around."  
            The assassin's smile deepened.  "So then, what I have heard is true.  Your hatred for them is as bitter as our hatred for the Sunni."  
            "Infighting," Francys murmured.  "Sometimes the parody of the self is the hardest thing to bear."  
            The assassin wiped his knife carefully on the coverlet of the dead official. "Or perhaps it is that we are more similar than you think.  Follow me."  
            "Aye," Francys replied.  "So I was told.  Think you it will not cause damnation to your infidel soul to ally yourself with a Christian?"  
            "Hassan has declared the new millennium.  We turn our backs on Mecca."  
            "And we trample upon the cross.  The Kingdom of God is within.  Where do we go?"  
            "I'll show you.  There are a million places to hide in Sela."  
            That much, at least, Francys knew to be true.  Despite the fortress built square in the center of the Wadi Musa, none of the Crusader knights had ever felt right about living in the stone city; the winding entry through the Siq was a bit too much like tunneling into hell.  The thought that people had once lived here, laughed here, loved here, in this place carved out of red rock, this place filled with ghosts…it seemed to Francys much more like a tomb, a city of the dead.  
            "What is it you seek?" asked his companion.  
            "Not in Jerusalem."  
            The assassin turned on him.  "That much is obvious.  Your people have been digging away beneath the Temple for years."  The pair ducked through a network of linked chambers, avoiding the sparse population of knights, who were able to hold the fortress, despite their small numbers, through the elegance of its geographical positioning.  
            "You seem to know much about us."  
            "We're everywhere."  
            "Or so you would like us to think."  They came to a stop at what seemed to be a blind end, a small room more like a cave than a habitation.  Then the assassin surprised Francys by moving a stone which seemed perfectly fitted into the stone floor.  He would never have noticed the join if it had not been shown to him.  
            The assassin clambered into the hole.  Francys hesitated for a moment, then decided that if his companion had intended to kill him, he could have done so easily – the Templar had been off his guard for a while, and it was difficult to swing a broadsword in these close quarters.  He wished he'd brought his knife, but he'd just grabbed the first weapon to hand when he'd heard the disturbance.  Come to think of it, he wished he'd grabbed his chain mail, too.  
            He followed the assassin into the dusk.  The man closed the hatch over his head, and he found himself in a small chamber lit by oil lamps.  "You live here," said Francys in amazement.  "But why?  Do you plan to kill us one by one?"  
            "I am here to gather information."  
            "The Hospitaller was quite well-informed."  
            This made the assassin laugh.  The shadows accentuated the thin efficiency of his body.  "Why are you here, Templar?  Why only one of you in a gathering of…how should I call them?  The uninspired."  
            "What I look for is not in Jerusalem," he repeated.  "Full of questions - you are hungry for information, aren't you?"  
            The assassin stooped over a cabinet, pulled out a plate with some bread and salt.  Francys understood the custom.  "Offering hospitality is one thing – offering something worth trading is another.  And you've offered precious little, not even your name."  
            "Tahmin.  It means "brave" in the tongue of Persia.  You see, I too am far from where I was born."  
            "Far from home."  
            "My home is Alamut."  
            "I've heard those legends.  The old man of the mountain.  I didn't believe half of them."  
            "The wise man believes everything – and nothing."  
            "How profound.  You don't want to know my name?"  
            "Sir Francys LeRoux, bastard son of Guillaume LeRoux and a pretty Saxon wench named Gudrunna.  Your swordarm outstrips your fortune, I think.  Many like you come here, but to come to the Temple is something else."  
            "You are well informed, Tahmin.  And why do you – do what it is that you do?"  
            "There is no why.  I was chosen when I was ten.  Would you like some wine, Sir Francys?"  
            Francys pulled up one of the rude wooden chairs.  "I thought your God forbade wine."  
            "I told you – it is the new millennium, and we have shortened the _adhan_ somewhat.  We say simply _la ilaha_."  
            Francys took the wine.  "Then what they say about your people is true."  He took a sip, looked over the rim of the chalice.  "And I'm missing something, aren't I?"  
            "I want initiation."  
            This made Francys laugh aloud.  "As a Templar?"  
            "Why not?  We planned to convert to Christianity before your Hospitaller betrayed us."  
            Francys whistled.  "You really don't believe in God."  
            "We really don't believe in Saladin.  He is a practical man, a mind made of daylight.  There is no mystery in him, and he hates it when he sees it.  He would cut us down, all of us down, and to him, it would be just another task he set himself to.  There would be no love, no ecstasy in it."  
            Francys leaned forward.  "And do you kill with love?"  
            "Always."  There were pillows strewn across a corner of the floor; Tahmin lay amongst them and looked up at Francys with a certain expression – a certain intelligence in his eyes.  Francys realized with certainty that Tahmin already knew the nature of the initiation, and the thought made his mouth go dry.  "The name I would like to know, really, is the name of your God," he said, and it was the most seductive thing Francys had ever heard.  
            "I could never say – to someone who was not initiate."  That Francys was hardly authorized to perform the initiation suddenly became a bridge that he would cross when he came to it.  "Tell me, Tahmin, about the nature of your initiations."  
            "I am sure you have already heard.  We are taken to the mountain and given a taste of paradise.  The most beautiful girls.  The most beautiful boys.  Hashish."  He paused.  "It's all nothing, of course.  For fools.  The ones who fall for it are counted as the least among us.  The real kingdom of heaven…"  
            "…is within.  But then the pleasures of the flesh hold no appeal for you?"  
            "Did I say that?"  Tahmin shifted, leaning on his elbow.  His lips, his lashes, his finely cut cheekbones were accentuated in the lamplight, and Francys understood that the assassin was probably best at snares.  
            "The initiation requires a test of faith – faith in the order.  You're required to perform an act which is an abomination in the eyes of God."  
            "_La ilaha.  _All is permitted."  Tahmin removed his tunic, more short and fitted than the standard Bedouin apparel common to the natives of the area.  Francys assumed that it was designed to hamper him less in his movements.  "Not at all," he said, as if reading his companion's mind.  "On a killing mission, I would be disguised as a shepherd or merchant.  We train in every kind of apparel."  
            Tahmin stood half-naked, ravished by Francys' gaze.  "You are very beautiful, Tahmin."  
            "Tell me, Sir Francys, did you join your order to find God – or to find this?"  
            "No one knows of this when they join.  The secret is not revealed until it and God seem to be one and the same."  He stood, moving closer to the assassin.  "Somehow, I sense that with you, the initiation is a formality."  
            Tahmin lowered his eyes and smiled; it was as if he had flicked his wrist and severed the beating heart from Francys' body with his curved knife.  The Templar no longer hesitated, aching with a desire that he had never felt before, a desire which carried him like wind and water, driving a ship towards an inevitable destination.  He pulled Tahmin down into the pillows, pressed their lips together, ground his loins against the assassin's finely-muscled thigh.  The two managed to strip each other of their remaining apparel, writhing on the floor, each maintaining as much contact with each other as possible.  Tahmin reached into a cabinet.  "Take this," he said.  It was a jar of unguent; its heady scent made Francys swoon.  He spread it on his stiffened cock, all the while watching the assassin, who lay on his back, propping a pillow beneath his arse, spreading his thighs invitingly.  
            Francys fucked him, fucked him for hours.  Whatever was in the unguent seemed to improve his staying power.  It also made everything seem trancelike, a beautiful dream created especially for both of them.  And for all the buggery he'd done, Francys had never seen a man so like a whore, moaning and flexing his hips.  
            Then they held each other, exploring the depths of each others' eyes in a marvelous intimacy Francys had never known could exist.  "I love you," whispered Tahmin.  "Tell me the name of your God."  
            "Baphomet," said Francys, smoothly.  
            "That's a lie."  
            Francys sighed.  "That's a blind.  It's derived from Greek words meaning Baptism of Wisdom.  That's why all our temples, all our castles have eight sides.  That's why we're here – looking for the real Holy Relic of the True Savior – not the effigies they show us at the Consistories."  
            "I understand," said Tahmin, kissing him with a kiss of opium.  "Someday, we shall be in paradise together, I swear it."  Suddenly, Francys could not keep his eyes open, and he felt as though he were sinking, sinking into the pillows, sinking forever.  
            "You have betrayed your order, my love," whispered the assassin, "but you shall never betray me."  He drew his knife.  He had no way of knowing how wrong he was.  
            Tahmin held up the severed head, kissed the dead lips.  "I have made you one with your savior," he said.  Four hundred years later, Francys would return the favor.           


End file.
